One of Dickens’ most mature and beloved novels, Bleak House (1852-3) tells the story of the orphan Esther Summerson (who like in David Copperfield, is our heroine b/c a perfect housewife with a demure basket of keys always hanging off her wrist) while running back and forth into interminable plot threads, all balanced perfectly on Dickens’ overfull plate. The hilarious critique of the chancery courts (the equity courts, rather than the criminal courts) in the unending case (Jarndyce v Jarndyce and the scary lawyer Tulkinghorn) also places blame on the construction of the family as a formal arrangement for property endowment, causing the death of the apparent heir Richard and the heartbreak of his young wife Ada. The childish Harold Skimpole is a lovely precursor to the dandy, always saying he doesn’t know anything about money but still being a lovely parasite; the fearfully dignified Lady Dedlock gives an allegory against extramarital affairs, yet leaving room for Dickens to mourn her and the unwillingness of the fashionable world to forgive; Krook, a notable victim of spontaneous combustion (the topic of a long digression in Dickens’ preface, for George Henry Lewes critiqued him for this “superstitious” element, not believing Dickens’ claims that it’s a scientific reality); and Inspector Bucket, the first literary representation of a detective as a key figure in a case. Other characters—Jo the crossing sweeper haunted by policemen telling him to “move on;” and the Jellyby family whose mother is too busy saving African children to rear her own family—characteristically for Dickens create a critique of the way institutions and the Victorian family fail to provide for its members.
Style: We have a third-person omniscient narrator who sweeps across time, place, and topic, interspersed with the first-person narrative of Esther, who claims not to know how to narrate but jerks our little hearts with the skill of an experienced writer. These two threads run parallel to each other, contrasting the roving, objective voice with Ester’s subjective, limited voice, giving Dickens the advantage of omniscience AND the advantage of first-person narration. Perhaps we can see a mirror in this very long book in the interminable creations of the lawyers, who make more money according to the amount of documents they produce and consume.